


Asphodels

by iheartloofas, juvenna_reverie



Series: Week One of Quarantine [6]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Enemies no lovers (but still homoerotic), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, We're just bros dude. Simply two bros. If we kiss sometimes thats our business ok, plus it's not gay if it's with the fellas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartloofas/pseuds/iheartloofas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/juvenna_reverie/pseuds/juvenna_reverie
Relationships: Jewel Bundren/Star Platinum
Series: Week One of Quarantine [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788067
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Asphodels

Jewel likes his horse. He likes the way her spots shift under the dapple of treeshade, the tapering of her strong legs, how she dances on her hooves and rears back her proud head when Jewel comes to put her bridle on. He likes that they still have to fight a little each time they ride, that he has to newly tame and she has to be tamed again if they want to get things done. 

If he takes her to ride by himself, that’s his business, not Anse’s. If he rides her to a distant field to sit and watch the stars, that’s fine too. If he waits, there next to her pensively chewing on bluebells, til he feels a light tap of gloved fingers on his shoulder and he looks up to see that he’s come back, again, though he didn’t have to… Well. 

“It’s my business,” he says, out loud. Ora (that’s his name, cause it’s the only thing he says, besides Jewel likes stupid names like his own) turns and gives him a quizzical look. Jewel sighs and makes an elaborate gesture with his hand, like he’s swatting some kind of acrobatic fly, and lets his hand flop onto his lap. Ora carefully copies him and Jewel feels something grow warm inside his ribcage. 

“No, no, I was just… Nevermind, that’s not a real word. Here, I’ll teach you a new one.” He turns to his saddlebag and pulls out a peach he had swiped from the Reverend’s tree. He moves his hand by his cheek to show Ora the sign. 

Jewel doesn’t know where Ora comes from, if he does come from anywhere. His hair is long as a girl’s but never tangled, he wears boots that go up to his knees, the bare skin of his chest seems translucent and somehow purple in the moonlight. His eyes are like chips of blue ceramic on that stone-carved face. The first time he saw him he wore golden armor (?) and a piece of fabric the size of a handkerchief in front of his crotch. Nothing else to impede the eye. Jewel remembers illustrations of fierce warriors in books from his brief time in school, but he can never reconcile them to the soft way he pets the horse’s mane or his surprise on that first day, when Jewel had taught him his first sign: hello.

Ora wears trousers now, almost identical to Jewel’s. He got a plaid shirt from somewhere too, though Jewel isn’t sure why he feels strange when he leaves it unbuttoned. They’ve been meeting at this field for almost a year now, at first because Jewel was too stubborn to give up his favorite spot and now because it’s a habit, he thinks. Ora will bring him things and Jewel will teach him new signs, just like Mama had taught him when they had all thought he was mute for lack of speaking.

Jewel’s never been one to question what clearly is, especially when it’s something good. Something that nobody, not Darl with his mind tricks, Anse with his greed, or even Mama with her great sad eyes will ever know about. Something that’s his. 

“Ora,” says Ora. Jewel looks up to see himself lying on the asphodel and hollyhocks of their field, his downcast face carefully shaded and crosshatched with a delicate hand. Ora turns his alien eyes to him as he holds out the drawing for Jewel to see, and suddenly that doesn’t seem to be the right name for someone like him, someone who came out of nowhere to be so perfect and right, a pinprick of light in the dark.

My Star, Jewel signs. Suddenly he understands the red in Dewey Dell’s cheeks after she came back smelling like hay. Star looks at him and blinks, and Jewel is reminded again of how little he really knows about him. Before he can think about it too much, though, Star carefully signs back My Jewel.

Jewel likes his horse. He likes the way she falls naturally into a gallop when they’re going to the peach grove where Star takes long naps. He likes how he can swing down from her saddle and take two strides and reach him, easy as anything, no Anse to sneak past, no hour-long ride to endure. He likes how he can kiss him, in their peach grove, in their kitchen, in their little creek beside the barn. He likes how Star will always kiss back. 

This next chonk happens between the events of most of the fanfic and the final paragraph, kind of an explainer. I felt it didn’t fit in the main body of the fic and I didn’t want to spend time making it fit, so I’m leaving it here, in case anyone’s curious about how I got to that ending. 

“Here, have a bite of peach,” says Jewel, because he’s definitely, definitely doing just fine. Star obligingly does. Jewel belatedly realizes that it’s the first time he’s seen Star eat anything when a huge man dressed in black seemingly pops out of thin air and starts swearing like a sailor. Star is completely absorbed in the peach, but Jewel might have yelled a little. He takes a moment to look closely at the stranger’s face and notices something. “Are you… his father?” 

“He’s my stand,” he says, as if Jewel knows what that is. The stranger sighs and says, “Clearly you have one too if you can see Star Platinum. Anyway, we really have to go. Come on, Star Platinum.” And Star disappears, just fades away, and somehow Jewel knows for sure that this punk with the stupid hat made it happen, and he sees what life without Star was like in a flash before him. He can’t let it happen again, he can’t let it happen again-  
“Oh shit,” says Jewel, when something rips out of his body: a huge bow and arrow, ethereal and otherworldly-looking, and something compels him to shoot it at the stranger’s heart. He only sees his eyes widen before a brilliant flash overtakes both of them. 

Jewel is in hell, or something like it. Eternal flames and everything. A tall man with frosted tips and a strange pair of sunglasses peers at him and sighs.  
“Stand bullshit again, naturally,” he mumbles. “This shit never ends.” He puts his hand between his eyebrows and sighs a long, deep sigh. “My name is Gui Fiery, and I’m the archenemy of Hades, I guess,” he says. Jewel blinks. “Here’s a tip: seek a boon of the old man,” says Gui Fiery. “The dumbass will never say it, of course, but he’s a sap for anything that reminds him about how he and the ole wife met.” Jewel does. 

“What the fuck,” says the stranger in the field, “what the fuck.” Next to him lies Star, but something about him has changed. He seems more solid, more like he belongs on this world. The stranger looks between people-Star and Jewel, then frowns slightly and calls a second Star out of him, one who looks like Star did at first, and who looks at Jewel with curiosity. The stranger blinks. 

“I can’t even pretend to understand,” says the stranger to Jewel's Star, then hesitates. “Though I guess I know a little. I hope you find happiness here.”


End file.
